Recent Fun and the Future
The blog isn’t dead. I’m just behind and not feeling motivated.
(Being a World of Warcraft gold tycoon, and not too bad of a raider will do that to you.)
I’m here to just post something so that you all won’t think I’ve blog-faded.
We’re still playing our two 4E campaigns with a 3 weeks of mine then 3 weeks of Dale’s game.
We’re also down to just Dale, Aaron, Scott, and me.
Glenn is gone.
Joy’s work and social life left no room for D&D.
There are no decent prospects of new players either.
So at our last game we were in general agreement that D&D has a giant fractured and/or diluted player-base.
OD&D, Basic D&D, AD&D 1E, 2E, 2E + options, 3.5E (assuming 3E was absorbed into it), 4E, and finally 4E Essentials (which we believe is a new edition rather than more options), and all of the evolutionary offshoots (Kalamar, Pathfinder, the D20 worlds like Modern, and so on) and games within the games (campaign worlds that stray from the basic swords and sorcery milieu) lead to a giant pot of games for players to play in.
In spite of all of my irritations of 4E, I don’t hate it. I do not like it either.
I believe I’ve given it a fair shot, but in the end, it is not what I want for my D&D.
It has indeed given the players a larger share of the game to take care of and allows the DM a bit more freedom in encounter design, but it does not feel like D&D to me.
Sure it has the names in the game, but it doesn’t play the same.
Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s my selective memory only remembering the good stuff.
But in the end, 4E isn’t for me.
That is just me.
Aaron has his opinions, but he generally doesn’t care too much what we play as long it’s not expensive and we play something entertaining.
Scott is pretty much the same.
Dale would like to give D&D Essentials a try, but I’m a great big “meh” on that idea.
WotC (and I mean Hasbro when I say that, not the pre-Hasbro WotC which was run by gamers) lost me as a customer. It has been over 2 years since I bought a single gaming book from them.
I will not be giving them more money because players found exploitable situations, killer combos, and bugs in their game.
You can’t “patch” physical books.
They’ve made a complicated game which made it prone to exploits. Their solution was to release Essentials.
It’s more money for me to spend on them.
“Isn’t that what they’re in business for?”
Yes, kind of.
They have to earn my business. Spending my money on book after book is not good economic sense for me.
So they leave something out of each book; nothing truly essential to play the game, but a few things that they can put in future books to get you to buy them.
How many times have you bought a D&D book only to use a dozen pages or less?
For me it’s far too often in recent recollection.
So, as I’ve told Dale, WotC will not be getting any more money from me until they’ve proven they are something more than a subsidiary company who thinks of players as a money source more than as people who are trying to enjoy their game.
WotC will not be getting any money from me until I can legally use a pdf or other file to prepare a game. (The loss of the SRD I think was the biggest mistake made for 4E. I blame shortsighted profit grabbing.)
In spite of all that, Dale and I still have two active campaigns going on.
Neither of us have any real intention to stop running them in 4E since we’ve put too much work to stop and redesign the game while at level 15.
But after that…then what?
3E?
Not likely. As much as I loved 3E, it wasn’t really usable after level 8.
2E?
It’s possible. But will people who are used to the dynamic play style of 3E & 4E be able to deal with the simplistic setup of earlier editions?
AD&D 1E?
That’s even more possible (Yottaquest has had one going on for over a year now). Dale and I probably have enough books to loan out.
Basic D&D?
That’s possible too. I own a lot of those books.
Hackmaster?
Also possible, but none of us have ever read the books. I do know they’re a lot more like AD&D 1E than any D&D edition following.
Take a break? I doubt it, but it’s possible.
We’ll have time to discuss.
Hasbro will also have time to pull their heads out of their asses too.
Here’s a suggestion Hasbro – sell the D&D IP back to true gamers.
I would love to see Kenzerco own D&D.
(Being a World of Warcraft gold tycoon, and not too bad of a raider will do that to you.)
I’m here to just post something so that you all won’t think I’ve blog-faded.
We’re still playing our two 4E campaigns with a 3 weeks of mine then 3 weeks of Dale’s game.
We’re also down to just Dale, Aaron, Scott, and me.
Glenn is gone.
Joy’s work and social life left no room for D&D.
There are no decent prospects of new players either.
So at our last game we were in general agreement that D&D has a giant fractured and/or diluted player-base.
OD&D, Basic D&D, AD&D 1E, 2E, 2E + options, 3.5E (assuming 3E was absorbed into it), 4E, and finally 4E Essentials (which we believe is a new edition rather than more options), and all of the evolutionary offshoots (Kalamar, Pathfinder, the D20 worlds like Modern, and so on) and games within the games (campaign worlds that stray from the basic swords and sorcery milieu) lead to a giant pot of games for players to play in.
In spite of all of my irritations of 4E, I don’t hate it. I do not like it either.
I believe I’ve given it a fair shot, but in the end, it is not what I want for my D&D.
It has indeed given the players a larger share of the game to take care of and allows the DM a bit more freedom in encounter design, but it does not feel like D&D to me.
Sure it has the names in the game, but it doesn’t play the same.
Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s my selective memory only remembering the good stuff.
But in the end, 4E isn’t for me.
That is just me.
Aaron has his opinions, but he generally doesn’t care too much what we play as long it’s not expensive and we play something entertaining.
Scott is pretty much the same.
Dale would like to give D&D Essentials a try, but I’m a great big “meh” on that idea.
WotC (and I mean Hasbro when I say that, not the pre-Hasbro WotC which was run by gamers) lost me as a customer. It has been over 2 years since I bought a single gaming book from them.
I will not be giving them more money because players found exploitable situations, killer combos, and bugs in their game.
You can’t “patch” physical books.
They’ve made a complicated game which made it prone to exploits. Their solution was to release Essentials.
It’s more money for me to spend on them.
“Isn’t that what they’re in business for?”
Yes, kind of.
They have to earn my business. Spending my money on book after book is not good economic sense for me.
So they leave something out of each book; nothing truly essential to play the game, but a few things that they can put in future books to get you to buy them.
How many times have you bought a D&D book only to use a dozen pages or less?
For me it’s far too often in recent recollection.
So, as I’ve told Dale, WotC will not be getting any more money from me until they’ve proven they are something more than a subsidiary company who thinks of players as a money source more than as people who are trying to enjoy their game.
WotC will not be getting any money from me until I can legally use a pdf or other file to prepare a game. (The loss of the SRD I think was the biggest mistake made for 4E. I blame shortsighted profit grabbing.)
In spite of all that, Dale and I still have two active campaigns going on.
Neither of us have any real intention to stop running them in 4E since we’ve put too much work to stop and redesign the game while at level 15.
But after that…then what?
3E?
Not likely. As much as I loved 3E, it wasn’t really usable after level 8.
2E?
It’s possible. But will people who are used to the dynamic play style of 3E & 4E be able to deal with the simplistic setup of earlier editions?
AD&D 1E?
That’s even more possible (Yottaquest has had one going on for over a year now). Dale and I probably have enough books to loan out.
Basic D&D?
That’s possible too. I own a lot of those books.
Hackmaster?
Also possible, but none of us have ever read the books. I do know they’re a lot more like AD&D 1E than any D&D edition following.
Take a break? I doubt it, but it’s possible.
We’ll have time to discuss.
Hasbro will also have time to pull their heads out of their asses too.
Here’s a suggestion Hasbro – sell the D&D IP back to true gamers.
I would love to see Kenzerco own D&D.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 4:47 PM
1 comments
